HAVANA - Today the government's Official Gazette published the Law for
the Protection of the National Sovereignty and the Economy of Cuba,
aimed in a special manner at the independent journalists.

Starting from now, by virtue of this judicial juggling, any journalists,
intellectuals and Cuban citizens can be fined, deprived of possessions
and sent to jail for expressing themselves freely.

All this under the cunningly made up charge of their alleged complicity
with
the American law known as Helms-Burton, promulgated several months after
their work started.

In consequence, also starting from now and in view of the unlimited
broadness of its reach, we, the undersigned independent journalists will
surely be forced to keep silent or face dire consequences.

But before that, although this might be the last free-expression
gesture, we want to reclaim once more what is ours: The right to say
what we think and to write about the Cuban reality. We want the world
to know that those who conceived the law commit a serious crime: To
strip the citizens of the choice to be informed and to think and express
themselves freely.

Behind the unconstrained aggressiveness of its articles is a fear of
truth. That fear reveals itself on the one hand by the feebleness of its
arguments and on the other by the turbidity of its purposes, wrapped in
political rhetoric.

Thus the injustice of the law: Now the government will have to carry the
burden of this judicial miscarriage, which shows its true face. It will
also have to carry the burden of our eventual forced silence, which will
be an accusation against it.

Communication is a live component of human nature. With this note we
make public our decision to continue our professional work, convinced as
we are that to inform and to receive information is a right of human
beings that supersedes any imposition by others.